Wired Launches iPad Magazine App with Help from Adobe

[Chiisu]

Clearly they somebody just doesn't get it...

When the promotional video isn't viewable on an iPad.

 

[newyorksole]

Wait do you have to pay $4.99 for each issue?

 

[andiwm2003]

well certainly something to try out to see where emagazines go. i'm sure the initial emagazines will be great because they need to attract customers.

however in the long run 500MB downloads and the storage of the magazines may be cumbersome. in addition with the prize that may drive away customers.

i wonder how much of the 500MB are ad's and silly movie trailers and such. at that point wired would be better off to just stream the videos. i don't want to download a 500MB (takes about 30 min for me) if I'm only interested in 25MB of content.

but this is only the beginning. let's see how it develops.

 

[davidwes]

I wish one of these iPad publications would have a yearly subscription deal that rivals the regular paper magazine subscriptions. I get the paper Wired for $30/year, at $5/issue I'd only get 6 months of iPad Wired for the same price. It makes no sense, and certainly won't wean subscribers off of the paper version. I would, however, pay the same as paper subscription to go fully electronic, as long as I could also retain access to archives of past articles, or alternatively have an option to clip articles I want to save.

Um. I get it for $10 a year. Where are you seeing it at $30 a year?
It two months of iPad subscriptions compared to a whole year delivered to my door!

 

[topmounter]

I would expect them to go to an app more like FT.com's where you can toggle between live and downloaded versions of the content.

I can't believe that creating a 500MB application every single month and getting it approved by Apple every single month is sustainable on any level.... It'll just take one "Natural Nerd Enhancement" ad to get the thing rejected by Apple for any given month.

As a long-time subscriber to Wired, I'll be waiting for the subscription option that doesn't require the monthly 500MB download.

 

[flottenheimer]

"video does not appear to support iPad/iPhone".
Oh, the irony.

I will buy the app though. Wired rocks.

 

[173080]

People always complain about the price. And then they buy it anyway.

$4.99 per issue is $60 per year for a kickass magazine which isn't bad at all. Some digital magazines I subscribe to are $50 per year (Robb Report) and they are far from being as cool as the Wired app. I'd be willing to pay more for magazines in a proper iPad app format like this Wired app than what I'm currently paying for what is pretty much a PDF.

I prefer digital over paper.

 

[JGowan]

They should have learnt from Time magazine, making each issue a separate app is a waste of screen space and effort. One app with in-app purchase would suffice perfectly.

I agree with you... ONE APP would be THE SOLUTION.

But, ultimately, this will be a non-issue in Fall when 4.0 comes to the iPad and you can group apps together in a "folder".

About the new folder treatment in iPhone OS 4.0: What I hated when I saw the FOLDER idea from the last keynote is the 4 little icons on a small square. God that is terrible. What Apple needs to do is to get their icon people to design icon sets that you can download and use to delineate the different categories you want (Games, Finance, etc.)... there are 21 different iTunes App categories now. Seems like a no-brainer. It would look so much better to have 1 icon to represent a category of apps. There's a million different ways, too, in showing that an icon is a folder collection of apps without making it an icon on a folder, which is so played out. But ultimately, if you use a lot of folders and you're the one picking your icons, you should be able to remember the generic folder icon.

They also need a dashboard of sorts for frequently used Apps, either those you place their (pin) or just keeps track of the top 16 apps you use. I'm just asking for one page of frequently used apps, Apple!

Ps... Don't look now, but the WIRED App is iTunes top-grossing and top-paid App on the store. Sucks, I was hoping poor sales would push their price lower. Meh.

 

[mojoxp]

Now they've got a code base for a digital magazine; its a sunk cost, something they can amortize it over the life of the code. Especially considering that they're going to be using the same code base across multiple magazines.

Of course the marginal rate for producing each copy of the digital magazine is going to be $0, but the total costs for digitization divided by the number of copies they'll sell is probably higher than it is with the print edition. I'll bet there is significant crossover in the costs for making the print, web, and iPad content, but there still is a unique cost with assembling the iPad version.

Another thing to consider is they're going to be giving 30% of the revenue straight to Apple. Of course this saves them for any distribution and billing, but it's still a sizable chunk of change.

What remains to be seen is if they can pull in more ad revenue with the digital edition. Not only will they be able to do "targeted" ads if they want, they'll also be able to easily update ads to the latest campaign. There's also the possibility of rich interactive ads in a digital magazine. Depending on how the TOS work out, you may be able to track exposures and time spent on the ads better as well.

I think that in the end what will happen is that Apple will come down on the 30% for content providers like magazines. Additionally, you'll see them offering yearly subscriptions through iTunes for magazines. That, or Conde Naste/Time/etc does something similar to the Kindle app where you purchase and manage your subscriptions via the web and then it gets pushed to a free app on the iPad. That way you could have a universal subscription that covers the web, the iPad, and (for an extra fee) the print edition.

 

[BoulderBum]

I found it interesting that Adobe helped Wired with the project.

Wouldn't it be interesting if Adobe developed a tool that converted Flash code to Objective C instead of interpreting it at runtime? Would Apple let developers use such a tool since it's compiled in native code? Could Apple even tell if a given app used such a converter?

 

[ECJ]

$4.99 isn't bad for this type of quality, compared to the lack luster quality of the Time magazine. Also, 500mb+ isn't an issue either. You can always transfer to your computer after you read it. Actually for me, I've never read Wire magazine in print form, but read half of this issue so far. This was one of the reasons why I got the iPad. For the next step in magazines. If they can just release a yearly subscription price like $40, I'm sold.

 

[swajames]

I bought it to take a look and it's really well executed. Too heavy on the ads for my liking, but plenty of multimedia and audio content plus it's cool to have editorial content that changes according to user input.

Bottom line for me is that this is a very good app offered at a crazy and unsustainable price. Drop it down to more realistic levels and I'd pick it up regularly. Happy to drop $5 for the tech demo and to take a look but I'd only buy it again if it were offered as a subscription for considerably less per issue.

 

[MarcelV]

As they say, you don't know your arse from a hole in the ground.

I wish I could show you the invoices we pay/paid... You really have no freaking idea. the only thing I can agree on with you is that paper can be expensive, yes, based on what you use, but it's not main cost. Always amazed that 'newbies' that post a few times, know all in and outs on this site and mostly troll.

 

[Luke Redpath]

Well that looks very slick - can't wait to see what other magazines bring to the table, um, iPad.
But the price...$4.99/£3.50? A little bit outside of the sweet spot to make it a monthly purchase IMHO. If if was nearer £2 (approx $2.90) I'd maybe buy it some months, even cheaper and it would be a regular purchase...

Its been a while since I bought a magazine, but isn't the average price of a magazine around £6/7 these days? At almost half the price, that doesn't seem too bad.

 

[danpass]

Well I've paid $5 for this one based on the content and if its "worth" it I'll consider further purchases.


Why am I still not sure?

Well its because of the ....................

























COMPLETE dumbass who thought 500mb was a reasonable size for ONE issue

Still downloading.

I can understand 100mb for the core of the issue and download the video content as you go (video would be the biggie I suppose)


.

 

[Genyus]

Ps... Don't look now, but the WIRED App is iTunes top-grossing and top-paid App on the store. Sucks, I was hoping poor sales would push their price lower. Meh.

And how many of those are purchases out of curiousity? Let's check again in 2 or 3 months time and see how the numbers are looking then.

 

[danpass]

And how many of those are purchases out of curiousity? Let's check again in 2 or 3 months time and see how the numbers are looking then.

Exactly. Plenty of people like me paying the price of admission to determine if it'll be worth the next admission cost.

 

[topmounter]

There is a reason why magazines offer "subscriptions" rather than requiring you to purchase each issue ala carte under your own volition each and every month... i.e. bird in the hand, blah, blah.

And I can certainly do without the 500MB monthly download, especially when I'm traveling.

 

[HiRez]

They should have learnt from Time magazine, making each issue a separate app is a waste of screen space and effort. One app with in-app purchase would suffice perfectly.

Much like Time I imagine Wired will switch to this model soon, the complaints will be vocal.

I agree, I'm not going to start buying these separate magazine-in-an-app things. You'd think Apple would get it, because they did it the right way with iBooks, and would encourage these media companies to create a similar model. I want a bookshelf with in-app purchasing of new issues.

And yeah, charging that much seems absurd, with advertising. I don't expect them to give it away, but I probably won't pay more than $3-$4 at most (or whatever you could get a subscription for). I guess they're going after the market for people who want something to read on the plane and are willing to pay the extra amount, which is perhaps a legitimate business decision, but won't lead to mass adoption. I can see myself paying out $5 in that situation, but not on a regular basis.

 

[bosox2009]

Arrgh... I want to vote with my wallet and NOT buy this but... this is what I purchased an iPad for! My goal is to eliminate all paid print subscriptions from my life.

My perfect world has my print vendors:
1. digitize their publications into cool interactive iPad subscriptions
2. notify me with an option to opt out of print and
3. convert my subscription model to iPad versions at a reasonable price.

Yeah, already having a $10/year nut to pay and then fork over $5 for something much better, albeit duplicative, and one-time...

dammit... I'm gonna buy it anyway

 

[john3478]

Very beautiful, pretty crazy though that it's bigger than half a gig (527 MBs). Seriously, think about it, that's the size of 5 or 6 albums with a good quality rip.

And on a side note... it's BS that they expect people to actually pay full retail for this... they are encouraging piracy.

I prefer experience compare to size. Size does not matter.

The experience so far really good.

 

[john3478]

So let me get this straight... I can pay $10 PER YEAR for the paper version delivered to my door, or I can pay $5 PER MONTH for a digital version that could not possibly cost them nearly as much to produce. Which one will I choose? PLUS I GOTTA SEE ADS TOO? WTF?

Oh yeah, I also get a free t-shirt with the paper version. Seems to me that Conde Nast has no intentions on taking digital publishing seriously.

I do enjoy the ads as long as it is high quality

 

[niter]

Mixed sentiments here and I cannot fairly take a side without having an iPad in hand right now. I like the publicity and the move towards making digital subscriptions more trendy. I like digital issues of journals and magazines and would like to see them gain in popularity and use (for ease and for mercy on the environment...less taking and tossing sort of thing). Ideally, I want something like an academic journal where you pay for a subscription and receive all the articles and back issues. Your digital subscription becomes a service vs. a number of paper issues. Currently, I think a great example of a digital magazine is Mothering (you can get a free sample issue to see what I mean). A subscriber can pay for the magazine in paper OR can opt to pay less for an electronic copy. The electronic copies are identical in content, ads, photos but simply delivered on a webpage. I think the iPad will rock this. I am not sure about back issues, though that would be even nicer!

Of course it is my opinion, but I believe the Wired magazine should be cheaper per issue unless it provides a service that is unique to it (not sure how to place value on the videos currently) as it saves on postage, printing, etc. Likewise, a subscription price would be nice too. I would not mind the higher "newstand" price then as it would be a similar service: one price tier for issue by issue purchasing and one price tier for yearly commitments.

 

[sonictonic]

They should have learnt from Time magazine, making each issue a separate app is a waste of screen space and effort. One app with in-app purchase would suffice perfectly.

Much like Time I imagine Wired will switch to this model soon, the complaints will be vocal.

Also 500MB an issue...!

Forgive me I can't watch the video yet where I am, but in the app description it mentions nothing about being an inclusive app or each issue being separate, so where did you get this info?

I'm hesitating buying it because I too do not want multiple icons for issues. That's crazy to me. I actually wish it was available through Zinio but if not then there should just be one Wired app with my issues neatly inside it.

 

[JAT]

You are so wrong. Expenses are in travel, salaries, design of new concepts/prototyping i.e. content creation. Correct that distribution takes a certain larger percentage, but that's a minimal cost for the publisher, it's often paid by the distributor. The publisher gets a wholesale amount, not the retail amount.

You are off the mark on this.

No, you are. All those expenses already exist for an established magazine. Adding digital distribution might add some additional expense for bandwidth/servers, but not much with Apple's delivery system, and tiny costs each month to create ONE copy digitally. That's covered with a few downloads, after that it's all net to the black.

Seriously? Your argument is "The publisher gets a wholesale amount" of paper copies, so the digital should be higher priced to compensate? Not. Going. To. Work. It's 2010.

Now here is someone who has it right Kudos to JediZenMaster. I went into this thread hoping to find people actually talking about the content of the magazine, not just complaining because its not free or a reduced price. The majority of the banter here is about the price, not the quality or content. Before everyone starts complaining about the price, have you purchased it, have you seen how it works? I'm going to buy it today on my lunch when I have access to WiFi. NOT EVERYTHING IS FREE!

But value is still in the eye of the consumer. Pretty clear this is a stupid price for this product.